Patch Notes for @FantasyStrike November 2018 Update

Fantasy Strike received its next monthly update as of last night.

While no new content was added in, this update builds upon the concepts introduced in the October update, which included a ranked mode and tremendous improvements to the practice mode. Perhaps the most noteworthy addition would be the visual effects that indicate whether you are at frame advantage or disadvantage after your attack is blocked by the opponent, and such a change is heavily welcomed by competitive fighting game players.

Unfortunately, the October update had also - unexpectedly - welcomed a group of bugs that affected gameplay. In particular, the odd behavior associated with hitboxes, which are used to determine whether or not attacks have connected with the opponent.

The November update addresses this abnormality along with other scenarios, and you can read up on all of them via a blog post by Sirlin Games at www.fantasystrike.com. Alternatively, see below for the full notes.

CHARACTERS

GRAVE

--Neutral A knifehand attack was accidentally changed from 8/8/8 frame stats to 7/6/7 frame stas for no reason last patch. Now reverted to the correct 8/8/8 speed.

ROOK

--Thunderclap’s vacuum force is no longer 2x too powerful for no reason against all air moves other than jump-straight-up. It functioned correctly vs opponents jumping straight and opponents on the ground, but opponents who had any forward or backward movement in the air got 2x the suction force accidentally.

VALERIE

--Valerie has a new animation for throwing Rook specifically. Rook is extra heavy, so as a bit of polish, Valerie struggles a little more when throwing him.

GEIGER

--During Time Stop ground super, fixed a stray single frame (after the start where the camera moves around, and just before he starts actually walking forward) where the opponent’s inputs were valid. The way ALL supers work is that during the cinematic for their activation, the opponent’s inputs are locked out for all frames EXCEPT the first 8 and the last 8. Geiger’s ALSO had one extra frame for no reason that didn’t lock out inputs. This extra frame meant that opponents who expected the Time Stop, waited for it, then started mashing throw the entire time to throw at the end of it, would accidentally input during the single bugged frame and could end up throwing the wrong way and whiffing. Now, the only time you can realistically throw the wrong way is if you pressed throw during the FIRST eight frames, which is not a bug because that means Geiger baited you to throw at a wrong time (you didn’t react to his Time Stop in that case, but rather tried to throw right as he did Time Stop). Once you see the Time Stop start, you can now react by mashing however you want, and all of it will be ignored by the game except your inputs during the last 8f of the Time Stop.

--Geiger has a new animation for throwing Rook specifically. Rook is extra heavy, so as a bit of polish, Geiger struggles a little more when throwing him.

DEGREY

--Real hitboxes for all of DeGrey’s moves.

Notes on that:

--Air super has 2f invuln instead of 1f. Also, is higher priority.

--fA has more pushback, but this is just to make it work similarly to before when it had wonky pushboxes. Also it has less throw invuln so it matches the animation better.

--B->B tyrant crusher is no longer throw invulnerable.

--B->C justice kicks are now throw invulnerable during the frames they are off the ground.

--DeGrey has a new animation for throwing Rook specifically. Rook is extra heavy, so as a bit of polish, DeGrey struggles a little more when throwing him.

--Fixed a bug with DeGrey where he could lose the ability to hit the opponent with various moves (A-A, ground C, air C) after winning a round with a counter-hit Tyrant Crusher (B->B) that causes a wall bounce.

--Fixed a graphics issue that wrongly showed several dark polygons on the cape on DeGrey’s shoulder; it was especially visible on the character select screen.

--Reworked sounds for ground super now that the ground super pauses on the parried hit before cutting to the cinematic. The sounds better support the action on-screen now.

MIDORI

--Real hitboxes for all of Midori’s moves, both in human form and Dragon form.

--While Midori is in his “empowered” state (glows yellow, happens after you successfully parry a strike), his walk forward no longer accidentally shows an animation of him walking backwards. There’s no functional change here, it’s just that the graphics showed a confusing thing before.

--Midori has a new animation for throwing Rook specifically. Rook is extra heavy, so as a bit of polish, Midori struggles a little more when throwing him.

LUM

--Real hitboxes for all of Lum’s moves.

--It’s now possible for opponents to hit Lum’s (super) dice out of the air as they fly across the screen. Opponents could already hit and destroy the stationary dice, but couldn’t destroy dice flying across the screen until now. We tried to set the dice this way months ago but had technical difficulties doing so, but we finally sorted it out. It’s not always easy to hit the dice though because moves with low priority might end up getting hit BY the dice if you try.

ARGAGARG

--Real hitboxes for all of Argagarg’s moves.

--Argagarg has a new animation for throwing Rook specifically. Rook is extra heavy, so as a bit of polish, Argagarg struggles a little more when throwing him.

ONLINE

--The first “season” has ended. After release, seasons will be about 3 months long, but we’re resetting it now as a test. Your rank is reset to the lowest possible (bronze E), but you get bonus stars based on your best rank last season. You get one bonus star for each RANK up you achieved. For example, if your best rank last season was Silver C, then you’ll get 7 bonus stars immediately at the start of this new season (the 7 rank ups you achieved were to Bronze D, then C, then B, then A, then Silver E, then Silver D, then Silver C). Also, the crown markers showing which survival modes you beat are reset for this new season.

--Frame advantage visual effects now work correctly with rollback. In the previous version, a technical error caused them to be a little more flickery than all other types of effects.

--Fixed a bug in Ranked mode which could sometimes cause a certain character wrongly appear twice on a team.

--Fixed a bug that could cause some Master rank players to be the “0th” best. The best possible rank is really “1st” and the next best is “2nd” etc.

--Fixed a bug that could sometimes cause the server and your client to disagree on the results of your ranked match (e.g. the server counts it as a loss, but your screen accidentally could show a bracket screen where you won).

--Fixed a bug that sometimes cause you to be matched with yourself online.

--If two players are matched for a Casual or Ranked game, but they join the queue again before finishing the match, they won't try to connect to each other again immediately. It means their connection failed at some point, so they will first try to match with other players before trying again.

--Expanded the online "presence" state so it's more descriptive. Before, the three possible states were "Offline", "Playing Fantasy Strike", and "In menus". Now, it says which game mode you're playing, or "In menus".

--From the search results screen when trying to add a friend, clicking on one of the search results then choosing “View Steam profile" for that player will now actually view their Steam profile, rather than doing nothing.

--If you do not currently have an active internet connection, or if there is some problem connecting to our servers, we now mark various features with a “disconnected” icon if they require an internet connection. If you attempt to access an online feature while in this state, the game will try to reestablish a link to our servers, and if it can’t, a popup will say that it can’t connect to the server. All of this is functionally similar to before, it’s just more clear what’s going on.

MISC

--The team battle screen before each match now animates faster, meaning a shorter duration overall.

--Team Battles now correctly resolve mirror match colors. For example, if you put Grave with color 4 on your team, the opponent is now unable to put Grave with color 4 on their team. It used to wrongly allow this in some situations.

--Jumps. If you initiate a jump (meaning reach the first frame of pre-jump) with a command to jump forward or back, you will now actually jump forward or back, respectively, regardless of what inputs you do during the rest of pre-jump (you used to be able to input, for example, jump forward then a couple frames later before you leave the ground, change it to jump back). In our old system, sometimes players intended jump forward, but accidentally got a jump straight up, and this should address that.

--In practice mode, the frame step help text in the upper left corner of the screen now shows button help for controllers OR keyboard, depending on which mode you’re in. This was accidentally disabled before for controllers, and it only showed help text for keyboard.

--When characters are in a spinning-through-the-air hit react, they now have a spinning sound effect. (For example, if you hit with Degrey’s B-> B Tyrant Crusher when it’s not a counter-hit.)

Having started out as an early access title on Steam, Fantasy Strike has evolved to a game where the entry level for newcomers remains low, but the more competitive players now have a variety of tools to draw upon when undertaking the journey of self-improvement. It has been featured at a handful of tournaments around the country, most notably Evolution 2018, where the player cap for their side tournament was quickly maxed out by those eager to delve into the game.

Positive reception between developer and community alike has remained at an all-time high, and with a console release slated for early 2019 (Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4), we will be watching to see the further steps Sirlin Games, led by David Sirlin, takes with their product.

What is Fantasy Strike, you ask? It is a 2D fighting game that incorporates incredibly easy controls and a new mechanic called the Yomi Counter (which is performed by not pressing any buttons when anticipating a throw attack from the opponent) into a setting that becomes complex when mind games are introduced by the opponent. In short, it’s easy to pick up, but harder to master.

It is currently available for Steam only and can be purchased here for $19.99.

JagoBlake, the author of this article, is an esports enthusiast who just so happens to have a way with words. Whenever he is not scouring the Internet in pursuit of breaking news, he's investing time into his favorite fighting games so as not to appear inadequate in the face of competition. To support his work, follow him on Twitter - @xJagoBlake.

StreamMe is a powerful broadcasting platform that brings together streamers and viewers in an amazingly unique experience. With only fifty followers, you can get partnered and earn revenue for each subscription made to your channel. As your following increases, broadcasters and viewers will earn access to unique options that will add some flavor to your experience on StreamMe.